Registration issues keep some students at home

Devonte and Damein Henriquez, who are supposed to start the seventh grade this school year, haven’t been able to attend classes because they have not been given class schedules.
(Photo:
Daniel Melograna/News Journal
)

MANSFIELD – A relative of two Mansfield City Schools students said two children have been told to wait at home until they receive their academic schedules — an issue she said could extend to more than 100 students in the district.

Stephanie Tharp, grandmother to two seventh-grade students, said her daughter enrolled her grandchildren into Mansfield Middle School from Mansfield Constellation schools more than a week before school started Aug. 27.

Tharp said a district counselor told the family on Aug. 19 to wait for a call that would provide the students’ academic schedules, but that call never came. Students cannot attended classes without a schedule.

As of Sept. 2, the family is still waiting for the call, she said.

“Our grandsons are getting frustrated,” Tharp said. “They’re sitting at home and they are going to miss their orientation. They don’t know where their classrooms are. Their concern is they’re going to be behind and not know where to go.”

Tharp said her family was told on the first day of school that more than 150 students still needed to be scheduled across all grade levels of the district.

Mansfield Middle School Principal Jason Goings said the only issue the district encountered relating to enrollment has been a number of parents who sent their children to school without registering.

Mansfield City Schools held a five-hour registration period Aug. 12 for elementary students and three, seven-hour registration periods for middle and high school students from Aug. 19 through Aug. 21.

In order to register, parents were asked to provide the district with a copy of their child’s birth certificate, immunization record, Social Security number, proof of residency and copy of custody papers (if applicable). Emergency contact numbers, medical insurance information and money for school fees also were required.

Without those documents, students are not permitted to enroll.

“If a student comes in and they’re not enrolled, we call the parents and (tell them) we don’t have any information on your student,” Goings said. “There were some (students) who we were able to get their records the same day and help them. There were others that we did not receive their records that same day. Those parents had to come and get their students because they were not in our system.”

Goings said about 80 middle school students showed up on the first day of school without having registered ahead of time. He said those students came from a number of districts.

The school where a student is trying to register does a records request from the previous school, Goings said.

In the case of the now-defunct Mansfield Community Schools, copies of childrens’ records have been sent to the school districts in which the students reside, this according to an automated message left on the charter schools’ phone service.

Goings said he believes many of the registration issues came through misconceptions of district parents.

“(Charter school) parents assume that since school started and this is the district that I live in, that they’re automatically registered,” Goings said. “No, it’s the parent’s responsibility to register those students.”

But Tharp said registration was not a problem for her two grandchildren.

Tharp said the district seemed understaffed when her grandchildren went to register. At one point, she said a district representative said Garverick requested an extra person to help with enrollment.

“But obviously that didn’t help much,” she said.

The majority of the estimated 300 students from Mansfield Community elementary and middle schools attempted to enroll in the district after the schools closed in June.

Preliminary enrollment data released by the district indicated enrollment has increased by four percent — 162 students — since school began Aug. 27 when compared to last year; Garverick said he expects those numbers to further increase as students continue to arrive this week.

As for Tharp’s grandchildren, she said they have no choice but to wait for their schedule.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lacking someplace,” Tharp said. “Because of that lacking, I don’t know how many children are not in school. We need to get some structure here because these kids are frustrated.”